DHAKA: It may be safe now to use Microsoft’s Web browser Internet Explorer, earlier reported to have a serious security hole, after the software giant released a patch on Thursday.

Microsoft has released a fix for its newer Windows 7 and 8 operating systems, as well as for the older Windows XP even though the American firm had previously said it would not patch the 13-year-old Windows XP because it had discontinued support for it early last month.

‘We made this exception based on the proximity to the end of support for Windows XP,’ said Adrienne Hall, Microsoft’s general manager for trustworthy computing, in a blog post, The Straits Times publishes this report on Saturday.

It is just as well, because fresh attacks exploiting the bug have been found targeting a version of the Web browser in Windows XP, said cyber-security firm FireEye.

BDST: 1321 HRS, MAY 03, 2014